ABSTRACT When historians have examined labour relations in the Belgian Congo, the paradigmatic image is that of rapacious, avaricious metropolitan investors oppressing helpless African communities by dint of a skeletal but violent cohort of intermediaries. Leopold II was exemplary of this trend. Having never set foot in the Congo, he drew vast profits from the territory by means of initiating a series of appalling atrocities as his employees coerced Africans into harvesting rubber in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such emphasis on exploitation fits with a long-standing scholarly emphasis on African dependency that has also highlighted how capital has leaked out of the Congo and into Europe and North America. Yet this article argues, first, that capital sometimes leaked from Europe to the Congo. Secondly, this essay suggests that not every investor in the Congo was as mendacious and cynical as Leopold II. Some, namely the Lever brothers, came to the Congo in the sincere hopes of establishing Christian, middle class African communities in the bush. But Lever's plans were compromised by the firm's paternalism and their overriding need to turn a profit.

中文翻译：

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“我们几乎一无所有”：1911 年至 1960 年比利时刚果的殖民统治、依赖性和杠杆兄弟

摘要当历史学家研究比利时刚果的劳资关系时，典型的形象是贪婪、贪婪的大都市投资者通过一群骨干但暴力的中间人压迫无助的非洲社区。利奥波德二世是这一趋势的典范。在 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初，他的员工强迫非洲人收割橡胶，他从未涉足刚果，他通过发起一系列骇人听闻的暴行从该领土上获取巨额利润。这种对剥削的强调与长期以来学术界对非洲依赖的强调相吻合，这也凸显了资本如何从刚果流出并流入欧洲和北美。然而，本文首先认为，资本有时会从欧洲泄漏到刚果。第二，这篇文章表明，并非刚果的每个投资者都像利奥波德二世一样虚伪和愤世嫉俗。一些人，即 Lever 兄弟，真诚地希望在丛林中建立基督教的非洲中产阶级社区，来到刚果。但 Lever 的计划因公司的家长式作风以及他们对盈利的首要需求而受到影响。